Bonkers Blog July 2012

A
tradition established in Nazi Germany in 1936 is to be played out in Bexley
today and not unnaturally passes by the borough’s very own Gestapo Headquarters.
Bonkers is and will remain an Olympic free zone; nice to see the sun shining on
those who wish to see how
Bexley council has spent our £271,000
but apart from the considerable drain on my pocket it isn’t something that I care about at all.
The sooner it is all over the better. However a very different flame was marched
through Barnet yesterday, much more worthy of space here.

Barnet is another of those Big Bad Mad Conservative boroughs that regards
residents with total disdain. In some ways Barnet is worse than Bexley but
unlike the crooks and charlatans we have elected, the Barnet crew have only just
woken up to the possibilities of calling in favours from the police and
encouraging them to take a leading role in suppressing Barnet residents
and its many critics.

Bexley has outsourced nearly all its services to the point that one must wonder
what the Chief Executive is left to do. Nothing at all if the Freedom of
Information request for a copy of his business appointments for May 2012 is any
indication. They still can’t find an answer. Barnet has embarked on the same
course. Another similarity is their attitude to motorists. Here the
megalomaniac Peter Craske introduced phone only parking and
increased parking charges, tripling some, yet managed to reduce parking revenue
all at the same time. That takes a special sort of skill.

Our friends up north have had their own Peter Craske to do much the same thing.
His name is Brian Coleman and he achieved the same 40% reduction in shop takings
that were reported in Bexleyheath. Funnily enough both these men have lost their
cabinet positions, although for very different reasons.

The protests in Barnet have been much better organised than in Bexley. Here the
council bends its own rules to reject petitions and may well have had its
reputation comprehensively trashed, but except for those who might be fearful of
the next loud knock on their doors, they have tended to get away with their
dishonesty and law breaking pretty much scot free. In Barnet they do things differently,
they take to the streets. The final spark was Barnet council calling for police assistance
when they began to lose the democratic argument over parking.

One of the traders pushed to the brink of insolvency by Barnet's parking
policies put up a protest notice in the window of her Cafe Buzz window with a
few copies in other nearby windows. For that crime (†) the cafe owner, Helen Michael
was arrested and interviewed by officers from Scotland Yard. If Scotland Yard seems a
bit over the top to you, it gets worse. The officers were from
SO15 and if that sounds like a familiar code it will be because it’s the
anti-terrorist outfit. That’s right, for exhibiting a poster protesting about
parking charges, Barnet council has had Helen Michael accused of plotting to
bring down the entire nation.

I cannot possibly tell you the whole story here but a perusal of the
barnet-eye
and
brokenbarnet blogs will fill in the details. Almost needless to say, Barnet
council in true Nazi style banned the protest flame from entering their Victoria
Park just a matter of hours before the event.

The links to the Barnet blogs are sample pages from many on the same subject.
Follow their internal links for the full horrific story of yet another Tory
council running amok. But not even Barnet council dares to defy
Eric Pickles’ guidance
on openness and transparency. That is an affront to democracy almost unique to Bexley’s criminal ridden council.

† The notice
in her cafe window did not bear Helen Michael’s name and address and remained in place for a day or two at the beginning of the May
election period. That was deemed to be an offence under election law by Barnet council. But a terrorist offence? How can that possibly be justified?
By the same logic that puts a man in court for using a metaphor about flaming
torches and pitchforks I suppose, except that in the latter case the man
concerned hadn’t mentioned the fateful words. Not that that bothered the lying
Teresa O’Neill and Will Tuckley.

PS. OK, I’ll admit it. My sister alerted me to to
www.bbc.co.uk/torchrelay
and I did find myself glued to the procession through the streets we know so
well. I think that was the main attraction, that and seeing living proof that Bexley’s
pinch points by design are barely wide enough for a large modern coach to squeeze through.

A magnificent technical achievement by the BBC if I may say so. If you missed
the live broadcast you can still see it via the link above, fast forward to the
bit that interests you most if necessary. Hall Place 18:00. Police Station 18:22.